CAT - Common Admission Test

Common Admission Test (CAT) is the most popular entrance exam for MBA admissions. It is computer-based national level entrance test conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) for admission to to MBA/PGDM courses at 20 IIMs as well as more than 500 B-Schools across India.

On the basis of CAT percentile score, eligible candidates are short listed and called for a Written Aptitude Test (WAT), Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI).

Important Dates

Start of Registration: 7 August, 2019

Last Date to Apply: 18 September, 2019

Download Admit Card: 23 October, 2019

Computer Based Test Date: 24 November, 2019

Declaration of Results: Second week of January, 2020

How To Apply

Application Procedure: You have to first register and create your unique User ID and Password. After registration, login again and fill up the application form. You must have a valid email id as IIMs will do all the communications by that email id only.

Application Fees: The fee is ₹1900/- for general and NC-OBC candidates. For SC / ST / PWD (DA) category the applicable fee is ₹950/.

Eligibility Criteria

You must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Differently-abled (DA) categories).

If you are appearing for the final year of bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification examination and those who have completed degree requirements and are awaiting results can also apply.

Age Limit: There is no age limit for applying to or appearing in CAT.

Exam Pattern

CAT is a computer based test. It has three sections:

Quantitative Ability (QA)

Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DI & LR)

Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VA & RC)

QA and VRC consists of 34 questions, whereas DILR section has 32 questions, making total of 100 questions in the paper. The duration of the exam is 180 minutes (3 hours). Some questions in each section may not be of multiple choice type. Instead, direct answers are to be typed on the screen. Basic on-screen calculator is available for computation.

Section

MCQs

Non-MCQs

Questions

Marks

Time (minutes)

Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC)

24

10

34

102

60

Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DI & LR)

24

8

32

96

60

Quantitative Ability (QA)

27

7

34

102

60

Total

75

25

100

300

180

You are allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and you cannot switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section.

Marking Scheme: You are awarded three marks for each correct answer. The test carries negative marking, one mark is deducted for each wrong answer. However, there is no negative marking for non-MCQs or TITA (Type In The Answer) questions.